01 July 2009
For him, the new year started with a birthday bash…with close family, relatives and friends. He stayed cool and calm all throughout his b’day party.

‘Ba’ and ‘aaru’ were the only words then. Sometimes ‘Appa’ too. No ‘Amma’ 😦

29 July 2009
All of a sudden one day, one night actually, he started walking! He used to climb up and get on his feet with support and may be take 2 or 3 steps before he falls into our arms. But that day suddenly he just stood up without any support and started walking around. When he felt imbalanced, he scurried. Appa was away and I got a video saved on my moby when he started walking third time that day….

Sep 2009
He caught cold. Our home maid left and I took 2 weeks off.
Then we decided for relocation. I quit job. Quit Bangalore.

Oct 2009
We reached our Home town. Manu had viral fever again.
Appa left for his new job, leaving us with Manu’s grandpa’s and grandma’s. Too much of pampering and fun time for him. Manu and me were on bi-weekly shift to my parents and my in-laws place. Mastered mischievousness. Learnt many new words.

Dec 2009
Vaccinations! 2 pricks on Manu’s both legs. Hard time for me 😦
Manu’s first christmas without Appa. Another bout of cold for the new year.

Jan 2010
First New Year without Appa. Manu got passport. Visa paper works went on.
Started replying ‘MANU’ when asked for his name. It was sooo cute. Every one liked it!

Feb 2010
Appa came on short vacation. Every one was so surprised when Manu jumped to his appa’s arms after waking up early in the morning. Needless to say, Appa was dumb-struck!
Even a slight variation in Appa’s tone would make Manu bend his lips as a sad smiley with tearful eyes.
(p.s Mastered other skills to make appa fall for him.)

March 2010
Started calling me ‘Amma’…. yeah!!!! 🙂

Apr 2010
After introduction of My ABCD for 2 weeks, Manu started identifying alphabets slowly.
He had started singing a malyalam song in ‘fill-up-the-blanks’ mode.
He wants us to start each line of it, for him to end it with last word in his way… Later he became lazy to sing that.
Now “eey..appaa..ppaa..” is a distant memory. He directly jumps to “ech..aai..lee..”.
Started with his nursery rhymes. Its nice to see his expressions…

May 2010
Another round of fever and stomach disorders… He started getting angry for silly things.

June 2010
Mommy in her mission to make him say more words, start talking and sing atleast his first song and to stop bf-ing.
Manu got his b’day dress…green n blue…

It was Manu’s second b’day. We had a small celebration at our home in our own way. This time we celebrated it ourselves without family n friends… Only candles. balloons and cake cutting. Little joys of our lives…
Manu was rather amused to watch his mom and dad doing all the decorations for him and having a fabulous time at photo shoot… He was just posing for the snaps. He reminds himself to smile at the flash… Sometimes he just wouldn’t pose and would go running to Appa for the review of photo which was just taken. On the whole it was a calm, cool and joyful day!

I believe all SAHMs are on 24/7 production support! Not a single day to spare… Even if its a weekend, or a vacation or whatever… Moms, especially that of toddlers are always on their toes. No warranty period and no backup plan for SAHMs… 😦 😦 and there is no way that you can go back and edit some settings or fix the bug in the code for better performance!!! Everything happens real-time…..and with a very high priority issue! ***Sigh***

When I allow my hd to babysit for sometime, when I’m running some errands, I could hear them shouting and messing up things. I’m not bragging about being a super baby-sitter…but still I feel I’m better.

There is one thing that every SAHMs should master- Time Management. I wish I was perfect in that. There is so much to do in a day…and that too if you dont get help from someone.

Since last couple of weeks, I’m finding myself out of my blogosphere…
So thought I’d make my updates more regular.
Thinking for a reason to update….
This football season, eversince Shakira’s latest peppy song has been hit-listed the charts, my Manu too goes ‘Waka..Waka’. Just that he says ‘paka..paka..’ for it. 🙂 He runs to it whenever he listens that song on tv or mobile or laptop.

As I early said, Mommy (Me) is in her Mission! In fact there are too many of them that I to get confused very often. To list a few, here we go….

1. Mission Home-Making. (or Re-Making, maybe!)
2. Mission Teaching Manu more words and make him start talking. (afterall, he is gonna be 2 yrs this July and he hasn’t started talking yet!)
3. Mission ‘Googling’. I’m finding ‘google’ as my next best friend! 🙂 🙂
I never thought I would be so addicted to browsing. These days I doubt I’m growing ‘Net-O-holic’. God knows.
4. and much more…. (to be continued….)

Latest update about Manu would be that, we’ve got new pairs of home wears for him and they all are a bit larger for him now. So he seems to be like an NBA player, though he is not too tall… 🙂
He had a hair cut last week, and now he seems to be a little more mischievious.

It is a major concern among many parents (including me). Generally, a child starts babbling at the age of 6 months to 1 year. Gradually they utter certain words which they picks up from conversations they get to hear, and what is being told to them. At the age of 2, they might start talking in framed sentences, sing songs or nursery rhymes and so on. Sometimes, some children tend to start talking after 2. Its normal. Every child is unique and different in their traits. Some may be early to talk and walk while others are not.

According to doctors and experts, a child could speak about 20 to 50 words by the age of 2. My son is 23 months and he can speak around 40+ words. Then again, it varies from child to child.

In these modern times, where nuclear families replaces older extended families, it’s quite obvious that a child gets to see and interact with only a very few people, or rather their momma and papa. Had it been an extended family in the past, there would be grand parents to pamper them or share a story, uncles and aunts or their kids to play with. All those experiences, interactions and conversations adds to the development behaviour of children.
A prevailing myth about toddlers is that, compared to boys, girls starts talking at an early age, though it is not scientifically proven.

If your toddler has not yet started talking, make sure that you talk to him clearly. Narrate stories to him if he loves listening. While playing or so try to make him utter some words by repeating easy ones. This is just not for once or one day, but has to be repeatedly done every day whole day… Kids just love praise and appreciation. Encourage them when they come up with their words, or even when they mimics words or the rhythm of your speech. Mimicking sounds or tone itself is a great step in their development.

Just hang in there, you might wonder some day all of a sudden your kid starts talking… Rather than thinking about speech therapy for your kids, just make it an attempt from your side. It definitely yields positive results.

Even after that if you genuinely think your child needs help, then go for it, don’t look back.